My Week With Marilyn Director In Talks For Adaptation Of Edith Wharton's Buccanners

Director Simon Curtis may have found a new project to make following the success of last year’s My Week With Marilyn. The filmmaker is now in talks for an adaptation of Buccaneers, based on the final, unfinished book by Edith Wharton.

THR reports that BBC Films and Ruby Films are both on to produce and that playwright and screenwriter Heidi Thomas has taken care of the script. It should be noted that she will not be working from an incomplete novel, as Marion Mainwaring, a Wharton scholar, wrote an ending in 1993.

Much like many of Wharton’s works, the story is set in high society and “follows five wealthy American girls who, unable to find mates in New York, set off for England in search of well-off gentleman bachelors.”

The story has been adapted once before, but that was as a miniseries for the BBC in the mid-90s. The writers on that project didn’t use Mainwaring’s ending, but instead created their own.

My Week With Marilyn was Curtis’ first attempt at directing a feature after decades of television work and managed to not only garner critical acclaim, but also Oscar nominations for both Michelle Williams and Kenneth Branagh. He also recently signed a deal to direct the anthology romantic comedy Click To Connect, which is being written by He's Just Not That Into You screenwriter Liz Tuccillo. THR doesn’t mention the other project or when Curtis would helm Buccaneers, should he sign on.